Around 5 years ago, while staying up late watching TV, I stumbled upon a show I had never heard of before .hack//SIGN. I have never been so entranced by a show before in my life (and the only other piece of media to beat out my overall obsession with it would be Star Wars). As the fates would have it, I started to stay up late each night, watching this show, looking up facts about it on the net. Now I am not sure how much you know about the entire .hack franchise, yet it revolves around a game called The World, developed by CyberConnect Corporation in the show/games (there have been 7 PS2 games for the series).

As I delved more and more into .hack and The World, I became obsessed with but one idea: I wanted to play The World. The game seemed so amazing, so beyond comparison, to anything out there right now. I had to play it. Unfortunately, upon looking it up, I found that no online version of The World, minus one or two failed fan projects, existed, and none was in the works. Being 15 at the time, and knowing a good amount of Visual Basic 6.0 programming, I simply decided to take The World into my own hands.

Over the last 3 years, I have been running a website called cyberconnects.com. What was once merely a .hack fan project, involving a poorly made 2D online game, has now grown into an official, Delaware-registered company as of January 2008 under the name CyberConnect LLC. Though I hand-coded the original game myself, I mostly manage the company now, and do a little bit of key coding for it.

The World and CyberConnect LLC have touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of people around the globe since it started back in 2005. People have made mortal enemies while crawling through dungeons of the game, and met what very well may become their spouse someday while sitting in the town of Mac Anu. As for me, it has taught me a lot about life. I have learned what it is like to be a God in some ways... to have the fate of an entire world (though it may be a small virtual one) in the palm of my hand (and let me tell you, when that hit me, I was scared).

Yet, if it was not for a simple show called .hack//SIGN, none of this would have happened. CC Corp would not exist, and the dream of The World would still be but that, a dream.

Welcome to our reality.

Joseph Stacko
President and Founder